The good news is that my hiatus from this blog is over. The bad news is that I really slacked on blogging about some pretty cool places and—because I’m trying to be realistic here—am unlikely to go back and catch up now with very much detail. In fact, I don’t even have it in me to catch you all up in one single post, so this will be a multi-parter.

If I was a responsible blogger, I would use this space to tell you all about the ruins of Angkor in Cambodia. This would serve two purposes. First, it would explain to you what you are actually looking at in the photos below. And second, it would distract you while your wifi struggles to load my dozen or so images.

In 10th grade, in an exercise to get to know each other, my teacher asked each student to share what their favorite food was. I remember that moment well because the question was a hard one for me to admit to, but my answer that I still stand by today is toast. Like the kind you have for breakfast with jam. Or maybe peanut butter. I just love toast. Wheat toast to be exact.

We started this year of travel with only a handful of must-do activities. For me, spending a day with rescued elephants was very close to the top of that list. So, when I realized we would be in Chiang Mai on my birthday I knew exactly how we would spend it—with elephants.

Somehow, I feel busier now than when I had a full-time job, a dog to take care of, and a workout routine. I blame the constant sensory overload of traveling through foreign countries. Not that blame matters. The point is I have not written as much as I would have liked to.

Two different times, friends told us we should go to Nusa Lembongan to swim with manta rays.

Friends from home suggested we hire a boat to snorkel the surrounding islands to see mantas. A new friend from Ubud urged us to do a discovery dive to swim beneath the mantas—saying she was jealous she didn’t have time to go herself. We did neither.

I am little embarrassed to admit it, but I have wanted to visit Bali ever since reading Eat, Pray, Love. Seriously, how cliché is that? But, I am being honest here. I added Bali to my travel list almost solely because of this well-known best-selling book about a woman’s experience of falling in love with a (very attractive) Brazilian divorcé while biking through rice paddies in the lush exotic countryside.